PHILADELPHIA, PA — The unofficial end of summer is always considered to be on Labor Day.
Gone like that as if it just started.
Summer and while we’re at it, MLB’s 2026 regular season too.
Monday afternoon’s Labor Day affair at Citizens Bank Park between the Braves (85-59) and Phillies (81-63) ended in the blink of an eye as Jesús Luzardo made quick work of Atlanta’s bats, recording a shutout in Philadelphia’s 1-0 series finale win, the first complete game of his MLB career.
In Monday’s postgame after his first career complete game shutout, Jesús Luzardo said he is going to the ball from the final out to his parents and might keep his jersey or the lineup card – Image Credit: Maz Adams/Latino Sports
Over one hour and 51 minutes of work, marking the quickest regular season MLB game of 2026, the 28-year-old Luzardo—the first ever Peruvian born player to step foot on a Major League diamond, also of Venezuelan family heritage—struck out a dozen Braves across nine scoreless frames with just two hits allowed and a walk to Ronald Acuña Jr. in the ninth.
An absolute masterclass at The Bank without much labor and it was all done on the All-Star southpaw totaling out to 109 pitches with 78 coming for strikes.
“Everyone dreams about being a guy your team relies on. Just going out there when, I don’t want to call it a must-win, but a big win, it feels good,” Luzardo said, becoming the 10th pitcher in MLB this season to go the distance and record a shutout—Sandy Alcántara (MIA), Noah Cameron (KC), Dylan Cease (TOR), Stephen Kolek (KC), Dustin May (STL/MIL), Jacob Misiorowski (MIL), Bailey Ober (MIN), Chris Sale (ATL), Cristopher Sánchez (PHI) and Luzardo.
“I had to make it interesting with the walk but I felt like I was in control of the zone the whole time so thankfully I came back out in the ninth attacking and that’s what it was.”
Jesús Luzardo, responsible for the Phillies’ shortest nine-inning game since a 1-hour, 44-minute game in 1989, at Veterans Stadium, became the first Phillies pitcher to allow two or fewer hits in a shutout since Michael Lorenzen’s no-hitter in 2023 – Image Credit: Maz Adams/Latino Sports
With no one warming up in Philadelphia’s bullpen and 92 pitches over the first eight innings, Phillies manager Don Mattingly had no hesitation in letting Luzardo stroll back out for the ninth in an attempt to finish Atlanta off, the first outing of his career where he appeared in the ninth.
“Not in my mind and his either. He looked good and he was efficient all day,” Mattingly said. “It felt like it was his game. In a way, to put that in somebody else’s hands didn’t seem (right).”
Familiar with Luzardo’s approach and elite-arsenal on the bump as his manager from 2021-2022 with the Marlins and this season as the interim in Philadelphia, Mattingly would later go on to say the firepower displayed from Luzardo (14-5, 2.87 ERA) Monday afternoon was shown in glimpses during their time together in Miami.
“Stuff-wise, it looked the same in Miami. I know he’s probably brought the sweeper out, I think it was more of a slider there but he always looked like this. It just was not enough strikes. Today, first pitch strikes (24/30, 80%), just in the zone all day (19 called strikes), forcing them to swing the bat (23 whiffs) and then having a combination of the sweeper, the change, and the fastball—he’s just different from the standpoint of just being able to power in the zone with all his pitches.”
Jesús Luzardo struck out six Braves Monday afternoon on sweepers, giving him 132 strikeouts on sweepers this year—the second-most strikeouts by any pitcher on any single pitch in baseball in 2026 – Image Credit: Maz Adams/Latino Sports
MLB’s 2026 home run leader Kyle Schwarber, blasting his 43rd HR of the season, got a hold of one of Didier Fuentes’ pitches in the eighth, a 2-2 99.7-MPH four-seamer and launched it 415 feet to the second deck of right field which ultimately decided the game as all Luzardo needed was one run from Philadelphia’s bats.
“I come in, inning gets done, and I just hear, ‘Come on, Zeus,’ and you turn your head and you see Zeus come out,” Schwarber said. “You get excited, the team gets excited, then the fans see him run out and 40,000-plus starts getting on their feet and they’re rocking and rolling there for the ninth. So, an unbelievable game by him.
Efficient is a great word, but, obviously he keeps finding a way to keep getting better and better, which is awesome.”
Jesús Luzardo on the mound and Kyle Schwarber at the plate helped the Phillies split this weekend’s four-game series against Atlanta, who are four games ahead in the NL East division with 18 games to go for MLB’s 2026 regular season – Image Credit: Maz Adams/Latino Sports
Better and better is one way to put it, with Luzardo’s month-by-month ERA dropping as the year goes on—March/April (5.50), May (3.03), June (2.97), July (2.59), August (1.31), and September (0.57).
“Hopefully we can keep it rolling into October,” Luzardo said.
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